Documentation

Configures grub to use the serial console as set up by Linode. Useful when running a distribution supplied kernel. https://www.linode.com/docs/tools-reference/custom-kernels-distros/run-a-distribution-supplied-kernel-with-kvm

Linode's pv-grub-x86_64 (only used for its older XEN instances) does not support booting recent Debian kernels compressed with xz. This sets up pv-grub chaining to enable it.

Linode disables mlocate's cron job's execute permissions, presumably to avoid disk IO. This ensures it's executable, if it's installed. It does the same for its replacement plocate, in cae Linode starts messing with that.